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Tough Choice - M1 Macbook Air vs Macbook Pro

2020-12-01 · Tech review, setup or bag tour · Ali · recording, 12:03 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Tools, apps and tech · mode: Review and recommendation · tags: His own numbers

Ali compares the M1 MacBook Air and M1 MacBook Pro (2020) on seven factors and advises most people to buy the $1,000 Air, while he buys the $1,300 Pro for its battery, microphone and fan, worth it as a business expense when a slowdown would be costly.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Two weeks with both laptops; the M1 chip and the prices

  • ★ Ali has been using and testing both the M1 MacBook Air and the M1 MacBook Pro (2020) for two weeks. — 00:00:00 · MacBook
  • ★ Ali calls the M1 chips a total game changer: Apple is moving its MacBooks from Intel chips to its own M1 chips, similar to those that make iPhones and iPads so fast. — 00:00:29 · Apple, iPhone, iPad, MacBook
  • ★★ The M1 MacBook Air starts at $1,000 and the M1 MacBook Pro at $1,300, with exactly the same chip. — 00:00:58 · MacBook
  • ★★ The M1 MacBook Pro has a fan and active cooling while the M1 MacBook Air has no fan, though both have exactly the same chip. — 00:00:58 · MacBook

00:01:13 — Performance: the fan and sustained performance, what Apple's marketing team said

  • ★★ Ali says that when he asked on a call, Apple's marketing team told him the vast majority of people will be fine with the M1 MacBook Air; only peak workloads kept up for many hours a day show a difference. — 00:01:27 · MacBook, Apple
  • ★★ The M1 MacBook Air is fine for short bursts of peak work; the M1 MacBook Pro and Mac mini are better for sustaining it all day, as with hours of video editing, Photoshop or Lightroom, 3D modelling or gaming. — 00:02:08 · MacBook, Adobe Lightroom
  • ★★ Ali no longer really edits his own videos and only dabbles in editing, so on processing power alone the M1 MacBook Air would be completely fine for him. — 00:02:37 · MacBook

00:02:50 — Battery: two extra hours and whether they justify $300

  • ★★ Ali almost never needs to charge either M1 MacBook: about 15 hours of battery for the Air against 17 for the Pro in basic web browsing. — 00:03:06 · MacBook
  • ★ Ali has to carry the charger of his old 2018 MacBook Pro wherever he takes it, as it gets only about three to five hours of battery. — 00:03:06 · MacBook
  • ★★★ Ali plans to keep one of the M1 MacBooks for the next few years; if the Pro's two extra hours of battery ever win him even half an hour more work, that easily justifies the extra $300 for him. — 00:03:35 · MacBook
  • ★★ Ali values his time at something like $1,000 to $2,000 per hour. — 00:03:35
  • ★★ Anyone on a budget who is not a business owner buying it as a business expense should probably get the M1 MacBook Air, Ali says: 15 hours of battery is not much different from 17. — 00:04:04 · MacBook

00:04:43 — Portability: 90 grams

  • ★★ The M1 MacBook Pro is about 90 grams heavier than the M1 MacBook Air. — 00:04:43 · MacBook
  • ★★ Portability should play little role in choosing between the M1 MacBook Air and Pro, Ali says: the extra 90 grams will not make any difference to his life. — 00:04:43 · MacBook

00:05:11 — Microphones: a side-by-side test

  • ★ Apple says the M1 MacBook Pro has studio-quality microphones, a three-way array, while the M1 MacBook Air has standard microphones. — 00:05:12 · MacBook, Apple
  • ★★ Playing back his test, Ali can hear a difference between the microphones of the M1 MacBook Pro and the M1 MacBook Air, though the Pro's slightly better speakers may play a part. — 00:06:13 · MacBook

00:06:40 — Speakers

  • ★★ For Ali, a non-audiophile, the speakers of the M1 MacBook Air and Pro make no major difference. — 00:07:17 · MacBook
  • ★ Someone super into music who will not use an external speaker or headphones might find the M1 MacBook Pro's speakers worth the extra $300, Ali says. (hedged) — 00:07:17 · MacBook

00:07:42 — Screen brightness: 400 against 500 nits

  • ★★ The M1 MacBook Air's screen reaches a peak brightness of 400 nits and the M1 MacBook Pro's 500 nits. — 00:07:46 · MacBook
  • ★★ Screen brightness matters to Ali only when working outdoors in glaring sunlight, when he appreciates the M1 MacBook Pro's extra 100 nits. — 00:07:46 · MacBook
  • ★ Those who watch a lot of Netflix or YouTube on their laptop, especially outdoors in summer, may appreciate the M1 MacBook Pro's brighter screen, Ali says. (hedged) — 00:08:16 · MacBook, Netflix, YouTube

00:08:36 — The Touch Bar

  • ★★ Ali is not a fan of the M1 MacBook Pro's Touch Bar and would rather have the MacBook Air's physical buttons for brightness, volume and Spotify playback; for him the Touch Bar is a reason not to buy the Pro. — 00:08:40 · MacBook, Spotify
  • ★ Both the M1 MacBook Air and Pro have a physical Escape key and a Touch ID sensor in the top right-hand corner. — 00:08:40 · MacBook
  • ★★★ Ali thinks the vast majority of people can go for the M1 MacBook Air, which he calls fantastic; most of the Pro's extras will not be worth it for them. — 00:09:09 · MacBook

00:09:20 — Verdict: the Air for most people, the Pro for him and his three reasons

  • ★★ Ali has been advising most of his friends, even those who dabble in video editing, coding or graphic design, to get the M1 MacBook Air. — 00:09:38 · MacBook
  • ★★ Ali is personally buying the M1 MacBook Pro, for three main reasons: battery life, the microphone and sustained power. — 00:09:38 · MacBook
  • ★★ Ali prefers the M1 MacBook Pro's slightly better microphone because he records many podcasts and could get away with it for a voiceover without a proper microphone. — 00:09:38 · MacBook
  • ★★ Next year (2021) Ali plans to live in different European cities for a month at a time without his Mac mini, so his M1 MacBook will be his main device. — 00:10:22 · MacBook
  • ★★ Teaching Part-Time YouTuber Academy live on Zoom while recording the screen and a webcam feed for two and a half hours is resource-intensive; it brought his 2018 MacBook Pro to its knees. — 00:10:22 · Zoom, MacBook
  • ★★ An extra $300 for the safety blanket of the M1 MacBook Pro's fan is worth it to Ali, as a slowdown during a live Zoom call with about 400 people who paid for his course would not be a good look. — 00:10:51 · MacBook, Zoom
  • ★★★ Buy the M1 MacBook Pro if a fan for sustained performance justifies $300 for you, an absolute no-brainer as a business expense; anyone for whom peak performance is not mission-critical should get the MacBook Air. — 00:11:23 · MacBook

00:11:52 — Pointers to his two reviews; sign-off

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Apple M1 · MacBook

Also: Projects: Part-Time YouTuber Academy

Organizations: Apple · Intel · Netflix · YouTube

Concepts: business expenses

Products: Adobe Lightroom · Adobe Photoshop · Final Cut Pro · iPad · iPhone · Mac mini · Spotify · Zoom

Also centred on Apple M1: Perfection - M1 MacBook Air (2020) Review · My New Daily Driver - M1 Macbook Pro (2020) Review

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